Church in the World

Vatican links 'Christianophobia' to war on terror

Rome

The Pope's foreign minister has warned the war against terrorism has inadvertently created a new "Christianophobia" in large parts of the world where Western policy is believed to be closely linked to Christianity.

Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, issued the warning on 3 December at a conference on "Religious Freedom the Cornerstone of Human Dignity", organised by the outgoing American Ambassador to the Holy See, James Nicholson.

"It should be recognised that the war against terrorism, even though necessary, had as one of its side-effects the spread of Christianophobia in vast areas of the globe where, wrongly, Western civilisation or certain political strategies of Western countries are considered to be determined by Christianity or at least not separated from it," he said.

The Vatican has asked the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to condemn "Christianophobia" along with "Islamophobia" and anti-Semitism, on which it has already held hearings.

Lajolo did not specify to which countries he referred, but he said after his talk that Christianophobia "manifests itself in various zones of the world as an attitude towards Christians whose presence or actions are interpreted as proselytism or interference in the local cultures". It is "not only in Islamic countries" that this happens, he said.

John Hanford III, American Ambassador for Freedom of Religion in the World, cited violations in China, Burma, North Korea, Vietnam, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, where Christians are still suffering the effects of church bombings in August.

Lajolo said that a prime concern of Vatican diplomacy is religious freedom rather than economic or political interests or "geopolitical ambitions" because it is essential for the existence of the Catholic Church and of "an objective moral order". He added that religious freedom was "one of the contested points" during the Cold War and is again today when the Church faces "phenomena of intolerance and violence".

Intolerance, he said, is "sometimes connected with a religious fundamentalism closed to rational dialogue or with an ideological vision that precludes the transcendental dimension of man or that abandons him to the shifting sands of relativism."

The conference, held at the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University, was one of a series organised to mark 20 years of US-Vatican diplomatic relations.
Peggy Polk, Rome